THE PASSING SHOW.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 58, 9 March 1935, Page 8

THE PASSING SHOW.

(By THE MAN ABOUT TOWN.)

A dog's pal calls to tell present modest owner of a mongrel that he has had three kuri killed by street traffic and that every driver who did the. deed hated KURI CLASSES, to have been the means. Most doge, he said, are fools in traffic-hang about in an irritating way and cause drivers" to almost die of heart disease trying to avoid them. He has another do" now, and he is trying to inculcate in him a traffic sense. Already he dives for the kerb "like a scalded cat" when he hears a hoot. Almost ho persuades one to beseech the authorities to have classes for dogs. Dogs are almost the only animals that have the beginning of brains. It is pointed oift by doggists and motorists that dog,* appear to belong to suicide clubs, cows are unquestionably mentally blind and deaf, and poultry anxious always to earn compensation for their owners. Cats" are "on their own." As a rule a cat is a calm, insolent, unperturbed creature, but crossing a road on which there ie traffic he needs no hoot to set him streaking for the distant skyline. He doesn't stalk or steal — he scoots; but a dog so loves man that he can't think" any decent fellow will run over him—and no decent fellow willingly commits kuricide. Individual training in traffic avoidance for dogs seems a good notion. There are several thousand local dogs to begin classes with.

PERSONALITY OF THE WEEK

From little acorns do great oak trees grow. Nuffield is a email parisji in Oxfordshire, nine miles from Reading. A little English acorn named William NO. 472. Mollis grew there. Nuffield has only two hundred and fifty people even now, but William Morris cut" out to be a Person —there is a difference. He was always a revolutionist —anything that revolved intrigued him —hence his addiction to bikes and his stupendous place in the motor world. Of course, Lord Nuffield is inspirational. You see him wholly pleasant. He must have dynamic moments. Note the almost unique lines of his forehead. They break and dip in the centre —extremely rare and seen only in almost unique persons. Mind you, a man can't help having brains, and Lord Nuffield doesn't care whether you prnise him or not. He's done what his brains, his physical stamina and his longings told him to do—and there you * are. No, one isn't writing about the motor trade —it is well written about. This great motor man, this originator, this modest gentleman, loves children. He has no children of his own —and he has seen thousands of children that needed help. He has helped them, and God bless him for it. No gesture ever made on behalf of New Zealand has. exceeded in simplicity, modesty or niceness his great gift to the crippled children of this country. It k all-embracing in its homely, domestic and Empire appeal.

Perfect poise is an attribute of the cultivated. The Maori rangatira has it in large supply, the aristocrat of any kind frequently jwssesses it, but even he POISE. after dinner has been known to pile his folded napkin on top of tllOibrend roll, or balance a fork on the summit of the nearest carafe. The public school, basing its communal poise on the nonchalance of repeated series of boys, μ-ives us the finest example of unawareness. Eton boys will pass other Eton boys without appearing to know that there arc Etonians in existence. Harrow boys seem never to have heard of Harrow on passing Harrovians. It is excellent to be able to stroll past someone one has known since boyhood without seeing him. These little thoughts obtruded as one witnessed a remarkable exhibition of unawareness in a gentleman walking along the footpath in Queen Street. As he passed one of the nicest shops in Australasia he removed his lower denture, gazed fondly at it, and at a smart pace resumed it with a click. The average uncultured man would have been too ■shy ti> make such a gesture. He would have felt that the crowd on the pavement would

regard him with astonishment, or even amusement. ITi> would have hesitated to remove his denture and to gnze at it fondly until he was in the privacy of his dormitory or other suitable hermitage. One visualised an extension of this human detachment. There are so ninny wooden-legged men who could detach their false understandings and wave them at the crowd. If the hundreds of people wearing a glass eve occasionally removed thorn in crowded places and polished them with a clean hanky—what examples of perfect poise! One noted that the man N with the detachable denture looked hard at a pile of splendid apples in a shop as he parsed.

The modern mechanician, attired immaculately in excellently-tailored garments, exuding the faint aronui of a recent bath and with his fingers (used for THIS groping among sullied CLEANLINESS, machinery) perfectly manicured, sought the peg whereon used to hang his working clothes. They were not there. Ho remarked that some ruddy rascal had pinched them. He didn't know why anybody should pinch a shirt worn black with work around the turn, or get away with a jazz jumper torn into holes and smelling of oil. He found hie garments, of course, but the incident gave rise to a rapid confab about the change that has happened in the sartorial and hygienic world since father was a boy. One mechanic, noted for the cut of his clothes, the spotlessness of his collars and his impeccable shoee, remarked that in his youth you could "smell" the trade a man belonged to. even when he was off duty. You can smell men of all professions and calibres nowadays and not pick their trades. An off-duty carpenter smells as sweet as an on-duty doctor. A plumber momentarily unpluinbed emits no more dreadful odour than a barrister. They are frequently indistinguishable one from the other. In short, self-respect lias increased a hundred per cent —and scented soap has become such a necessity that politicians themselves not only use it but bathe daily. It was recalled' that '■'the office towel," a thing of many summers, once fell down and broke. It was also recollected that a train traveller once complained of the dirty communal towel in the washplarc. the indignant trainman remarking. -Hundreds of blokes has used that towel and ydu're the first one to complain."